A strong lobbying effort on climate-induced displacement was made by the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility. This is a key group, bringing together the UNHCR, other U.N. agencies, the International Organization for Migration, the Norwegian Refugee Council/IDMC, Refugees International, the Center for International Relations Studies of Sciences Po (Sciences Po-CERI), and the Arab Network for Environment and Development (RAED). The group pushed hard to ensure that the issue would be part of the agreement to be reached in Paris.

Initially, the draft agreement for the Paris climate talks included the recommendation that a climate change displacement coordination facility be established to provide “organized migration and planned relocation” and financial compensation for those displaced by climate change. It was then removed from the document, largely due to opposition by Australia. The proximity of the low-lying islands of Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati and their vulnerable populations doubtless played a role. While Canberra has spent some $50 million in climate resilience projects in the Pacific and contributed $200 million to the Green Climate Fund, it may not want to lose its ability to deal with the issue on its own terms. Australia is unlikely to be alone as the impact of climate change on human migration and other challenges increases. The more powerful and those most responsible for global warming—Australia is the highest per capita CO2 emitter in the world—could also move to deal with climate change issues, including displacement, on their own terms and their own timelines. Yet the see-saw continues; it is now back in the latest draft agreement though hanging precariously.

So while the mention of migration is back, the real battle now is where the reference shall appear. Most developing countries want climate displacement under a framework of “loss and damage” to get compensation from the worst emitters of carbon dioxide from the developed world. The developed world prefers a framework of adaptation in which they would subsidize the cost of adaptation but not pay for compensation. Walter Kaelin, from the Nansen Initiative, a group trying to rally international action to protect climate-induced migrants, notes that “if it’s mentioned in a general way then you can build on it… This has not been achieved yet.” Let us hope we get there.

A good place to begin would be legal protection for climate-induced displaced people. Currently, there is only a non-binding agreement on internal displacement from 1998. Aside from legal, protected status, what is also needed is a coordination mechanism and help with funding for vulnerable populations, as noted in the recommendations of the Advisory Group. The coordination mechanism is now in the latest draft. The most vulnerable are those in poorer countries that lack the resources to fund large resettlement programs, flood relief channels, large water transfer programs to replenish aquifers, etc. None of this is cheap but it is providing a global public good. Europe’s current refugee crisis is but a small, compressed example of the challenge.

Author

Regional Knowledge & Learning Coordinator, World Bank

This blog was first launched in September 2013 by the World Bank in an effort to hold governments more accountable to poor people and offer solutions to the most prominent development challenges. Continuing this goal, Future Development was re-launched in January 2015 at brookings.edu.